Tuesday, 29 December 2009

With all the calories put on over Christmas, I thought I would take a trip down to the coast, near St. Marys Lighthouse as I had earlier on in the month, in the hope to burn some of the festivals excesses off. The time and conditions were almost identical to the last time I came – early morning, cold and mostly overcast only this time it was much more windier making it feel a lot colder. On this occasion, I also decided to bring different photographic equipment as I was more interested in photographing any wildlife there may have been around.

However, I did decide to take the opportunity to photography the sunrise again, but unlike last time, the sun didn’t show, so I thought I would try something different and use a 10 stop ND filter to create a long exposure effect and salvage a worthwhile image. The below image ended up being around four and a half minutes long.

A short walk and I found some shore birds feeding, and with the tide coming in I decided to sit myself down and wait for them to come into photographic distance of my lens. After about an hour and a half (and a very cold, damp backside) I had taken an ample number of photographs under dull and difficult conditions resulting in nothing particularly exciting, (see below) and after the inevitable dog came bounding along and chased all the birds away, I decided to call it a day.

Saturday, 12 December 2009

5:00am

Already wide awake when the alarm went off at 5:00am, it was therefore easier to get out of bed than it might of otherwise been on a cold, dark December Saturday morning. First things first – look outside to see what the weather’s like. The forecast was ok but then it was forecast to be ok last Saturday but it was raining when I got up then at five in the morning. It’s not raining – at least not at the moment! The current forecast is still promising if cold, minus 3, so by 6:15am I’m off to my planned morning trip to the coast, dressed in enough layers of warm clothing to keep me cosy through a Siberian winter.

7:20am and I’m at Whitley Bay, stopping off at a newsagent to buy a Whisper bar – breakfast. By the time I get to my final destination, at St. Marys Lighthouse, it’s nearly eight and getting light. At this time of year, this is the best location along this part of the coast of Tyneside, to photography the sunrise over water because the sun rises further to the south east. I checked the tide timetable the day before to make sure the tide wasn’t either too far out or in at around sunrise, as I wanted to have a foreground of rocks and water in my shots. If the tide was too far in, there wouldn’t be any rocks, if it was too far out I would have to clamber over a lot of slippery rocks in dark light to get near the water’s edge. It was almost ideal except that the tide was coming in which means I have to watch I don’t get caught unawares.

8:00am and I’m set up at a nice spot, camera on tripod and a neutral graduated filter on the lens to help balance out the exposure so the background is balanced to a similar brightness to the sky.

I’ve always loved sunrises, seeing the sun come up and night turn into a new day, there’s something very magical about them. From a photographers point, you have to rely on the weather and the sky in particular as this can make the shot. Today, the sky was completely overcast except, amazingly, for the horizon where the sun was coming up, due around 8:35am.

8:21am

I started taking pictures before this however, as the colours and sky constantly changed during the first half hour before the sunrise, starting with a soft, blue shades of colour.

8:43am

By sunrise, I have had to move back a couple of times as the tide started to come in. As the sun came over the horizon, it started to become windy and rain slightly, but now the blue shades gave way to a smattering of oranges and yellows and the clouds helped make the sunrise a picturesque science. It’s at this point, the light is constantly changing and I was so caught up in what I was doing that I forgot about the tide which had started to creep around behind me, so I had to move further back again.

9:28am

By now it had started to cloud over again, which was actually a good thing, otherwise the light would have been too strong. The sun was just about poking through the clouds, giving a soft grey light, still dull enough to let me get long enough exposures to give the water that feeling of movement. By 9:35am, that was it. My hands were frozen, the light was to harsh and the tide, quickly coming in, but I felt I had got some good images. Still early, so I thought I would see what else there was to photograph.

Oystercatchers

9:55am

With the tide coming in, that tends to be a good time to catch wading birds so went to a spot which I know can be a good location so long as there is nobody walking their dogs. My good fortune seemed to be holding out as there were a number of Oystercatchers and Sanderlings and by sitting on the beach, I just let them come to me. Unfortunately, I didn’t have my right camera or lens to photograph wildlife so had to make do with what I had, otherwise would have go some good shots. After some twenty minutes or so, a fellow photographer came up to me and told me about a seal near by. He pointed out roughly were it was and so off I trotted in the hope of photographing my first seal.

Grey Seal

10:25am

Having reached the point on the St. Marys causeway where he said the seal was, I started looking for it but couldn’t find it. He came along and pointed it out to me – still I couldn’t see it – until it moved. It had looked like one of the rocks. No wonder people were just walking past it without knowing it was there. It seemed quite young, indifferently lying there, dozing and occasionally looking around. I took a few shots on the one time it looked up and decided not to disturb its sleep and left.

10:38am

As I walked back, the fog was rolling in off the mainland and I took a shot of a flock of Lapwings with the background of Whitley Bay and Cullercoats in the hazy distance.

11:12am

Having put my camera away I came across one final image of this fog bank obliterating the coastline, with the sun just managing to come through, so out it came again one last time. By the time I had finished with these last few pictures, five hours had passed since arriving in the early morning darkness and I had filled 2, 2GB of camera flash cards with a assortment of images both wildlife and seascape. Not a bad days shooting.

Already wide awake when the alarm went off at 5:00am, it was therefore easier to get out of bed than it might of otherwise been on a cold, dark December Saturday morning. First things first – look outside to see what the weather’s like. The forecast was ok but then it was forecast to be ok last Saturday but it was raining when I got up then at five in the morning. It’s not raining – at least not at the moment! The current forecast is still promising if cold, minus 3, so by 6:15am I’m off to my planned morning trip to the coast, dressed in enough layers of warm clothing to keep me cosy through a Siberian winter.

7:20am and I’m at Whitley Bay, stopping off at a newsagent to buy a Whisper bar – breakfast. By the time I get to my final destination, at St. Marys Lighthouse, it’s nearly eight and getting light. At this time of year, this is the best location along this part of the coast of Tyneside, to photography the sunrise over water because the sun rises further to the south east. I checked the tide timetable the day before to make sure the tide wasn’t either too far out or in at around sunrise, as I wanted to have a foreground of rocks and water in my shots. If the tide was too far in, there wouldn’t be any rocks, if it was too far out I would have to clamber over a lot of slippery rocks in dark light to get near the water’s edge. It was almost ideal except that the tide was coming in which means I have to watch I don’t get caught unawares.

8:00am and I’m set up at a nice spot, camera on tripod and a neutral graduated filter on the lens to help balance out the exposure so the background is balanced to a similar brightness to the sky.

I’ve always loved sunrises, seeing the sun come up and night turn into a new day, there’s something very magical about them. From a photographers point, you have to rely on the weather and the sky in particular as this can make the shot. Today, the sky was completely overcast except, amazingly, for the horizon where the sun was coming up, due around 8:35am.

8:21am

I started taking pictures before this however, as the colours and sky constantly changed during the first half hour before the sunrise, starting with a soft, blue shades of colour.

8:43am

By sunrise, I have had to move back a couple of times as the tide started to come in. As the sun came over the horizon, it started to become windy and rain slightly, but now the blue shades gave way to a smattering of oranges and yellows and the clouds helped make the sunrise a picturesque science. It’s at this point, the light is constantly changing and I was so caught up in what I was doing that I forgot about the tide which had started to creep around behind me, so I had to move further back again.

9:28am

By now it had started to cloud over again, which was actually a good thing, otherwise the light would have been too strong. The sun was just about poking through the clouds, giving a soft grey light, still dull enough to let me get long enough exposures to give the water that feeling of movement. By 9:35am, that was it. My hands were frozen, the light was to harsh and the tide, quickly coming in, but I felt I had got some good images. Still early, so I thought I would see what else there was to photograph.

Oystercatchers

9:55am

With the tide coming in, that tends to be a good time to catch wading birds so went to a spot which I know can be a good location so long as there is nobody walking their dogs. My good fortune seemed to be holding out as there were a number of Oystercatchers and Sanderlings and by sitting on the beach, I just let them come to me. Unfortunately, I didn’t have my right camera or lens to photograph wildlife so had to make do with what I had, otherwise would have go some good shots. After some twenty minutes or so, a fellow photographer came up to me and told me about a seal nearby. He pointed out roughly were it was and so off I trotted in the hope of photographing my first seal.

Grey Seal

10:25am

Having reached the point on the St. Marys causeway where he said the seal was, I started looking for it but couldn’t find it. He came along and pointed it out to me – still I couldn’t see it – until it moved. It had looked like one of the rocks. No wonder people were just walking past it without knowing it was there. It seemed quite young, indifferently lying there, dozing and occasionally looking around. I took a few shots on the one time it looked up and decided not to disturb its sleep and left.

10:38am

As I walked back, the fog was rolling in off the mainland and I took a shot of a flock of Lapwings with the background of Whitley Bay and Cullercoats in the hazy distance.

11:12am

Having put my camera away I came across one final image of this fog bank obliterating the coastline, with the sun just managing to come through, so out it came again one last time. By the time I had finished with these last few pictures, five hours had passed since arriving in the early morning darkness and I had filled 2, 2GB of camera flash cards with a assortment of images both wildlife and seascape. Not a bad days shooting.

Saturday, 28 November 2009

After missing last weekend due to the normal grey, wet and windy weather, today I planned on a trip to one of my favourite 'haunts', a local wood where no dogs are allowed. So without them running around barking and chasing the wildlife (not to mention them coming up to you and sniffing various parts of your anatomy), you have a very good chance of seeing deer and foxes, even during the middle of the day.

The last time I was here, was in September where I was fed off by a particularly aggressive strain of blood sucking mosquitoes, but despite their best efforts I was able to get a few decent shots before beating a hasty retreat.

Young Roe Deer - September

I arrived just after sunrise on a dull and misty morning - not ideal weather. Temperature was around 3c and no wind, making the wood seem a quiet, eerie place, the silence only broken by my footsteps in the leaf undergrowth.

Unfortunately, this crunching sound got the attention of a Magpie which started mobbing me which resulted in my first deer sighting being a fleeting glimpse of it white, rear end, as it fled into the underbrush. I scowled at the Magpie. Eventually, it decided it had better things to do and left me in peace. A cold two hours later resulted in another deer's rear end, a rabbits rear end (after nearly treading on it) and a pheasant flying out of nowhere and taking about five years off my life! The only signs of life that could be photographed was a spider in its web and a Sparrowhawk strike.

I decided to make the most out of the atmospheric light and take a few photographs of what was around.

Eventually the sun came out so I went to the nearby lake to see what was around - not much but I did take a few more pictures.

Finally, I decided to call it a day. After over four hours I had little to show for it and as I walking the final leg back through the woods, thinking of what I was going to have for lunch, when I stumbled across two Roe Deer, only to see them bounding away. Needless to say, I was kicking myself for being more concerned about my rumbling stomach than concentrating on what was around me.

One of the reasons I wanted to have a blog, was to show photographs I might not otherwise show on my website because I don't think they are very good. For me wildlife photography is a challenge. Simply seeing some wildlife is difficult. Being able to photograph it is even more difficult. Photographing it so that it is technically good is even more so and photographing wildlife so that it is also visually pleasing is the ultimate aim for me and that I find, if I'm lucky, is about 1 in every 10 attempts.

Thursday, 12 November 2009

Despite being off on holiday from work this week, I've found myself getting up earlier than I would have had it been a normal work week - all in the name of photography. For wildlife this is the best time to catch a lot of animals. For landscapes, it's part of the 'golden hour', where the light is just right.

Today I decided on the former option as the forecast was for 'sunny' weather and so decided to visit one of the local hides there is in the area, which I hadn't been to for some time, in the hope of photographing the often elusive Kingfisher. When I arrived it was dull, damp and grey - not good photography weather, but soon after I settled, the Kingfisher appeared on the pond the hide overlooked. Unfortunately, it was spending most of its time out of sight around the edges, despite there being a couple of conveniently positioned poles directly in front of the hide, for it to fish from, so I could get a good photo.

After three hours patiently waiting and photographing the other, not so shy wildlife, I got a lucky break in both the weather and the Kingfishers posing, when the sun came out and it stopped for a few minutes, just where I needed it, and managed to take a few half decent pictures.